Program ID: Innovation Anthology #270
Program Date: 11/24/2009
Program Category: Conservation, Oil Sands, Water, Wildlife
New Waterfowl Deterrents For Syncrude Tailings Ponds
When hundreds of waterfowl unexpectedly died one spring after landing on tailings ponds, Syncrude Canada revised the bird deterrent program that it has used for 30 years.
For Steven Gaudet, Syncrude’s Manager of Environmental Affairs, the key is open water with bitumen residue. And with a large resident bird population, Syncrude will now operate its bird deterrent program year round, instead of only spring to fall.
And along with the boom of cannons and hand held pyrotechnical devices, Syncrude will also employ sophisticated radar.
STEVEN GAUDET: We heard through the airline industry that radar was proving effective. That they have an issue both the airline industry and military operations of seeking small, elusive, fast moving targets. And bingo, that’s the same issue we have in a tailings operation. So our choice for radar was one that allowed for some signal processing and numerical processing of the radar signal and it resolves directly into individual targets.
According to Steven Gaudet, data collected by the refined radar system can be stored, played back and analyzed.
Thanks today to Syncrude Canada.
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I'M CHERYL CROUCHER
Images
Steven Gaudet, Syncrude Canada
